Governor's lips slip on prankster's call

Wisconsin governor talks strategy with caller imitating billionaire

Ryan J. Foley Associated Press

Published 12:01 am, Thursday, February 24, 2011

MADISON, Wis. -- On a prank call that quickly spread across the Internet, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was duped into discussing his strategy to cripple public employee unions, promising never to give in and joking that he would use a baseball bat in his office to go after political opponents.

Walker believed the caller was a conservative billionaire named David Koch, but it was actually the editor of a liberal online newspaper. The two talked for at least 20 minutes -- a conversation in which the governor described several potential ways to pressure Democrats to return to the Statehouse and revealed that his supporters had considered secretly planting people in pro-union protest crowds to stir up trouble.

Walker said he expected the anti-union movement to spread across the country and he had spoken with the governors of Ohio and Nevada. The man pretending to be Koch seemed to agree, telling Walker, "You're the first domino."

"Yep, this is our moment," Walker responded.

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The call also showed Walker's cozy relationship with David and Charles Koch, two billionaire brothers who have poured millions of dollars into conservative political causes, including Walker's campaign last year.

The audio was posted by the Buffalo Beast, a left-leaning website based in Buffalo, and quickly went viral.

Ian Murphy told The Associated Press he carried out the prank to show how candidly Walker would speak with Koch even though, according to Democrats, he refuses to return their calls.

At a news conference, Walker acknowledged being deceived but stuck to his message that the union changes were needed to balance Wisconsin's budget.

Democrats seized on Walker's recorded comments as evidence that the governor plans to go beyond budget cuts to crushing unions.

The governor's plan would strip most public employees of their collective bargaining rights and require them to pay more for their health care and retirement benefits. Unions could not collect mandatory dues and would be forced to conduct annual votes of their members to stay in existence.

Also Wednesday, Republican state senators in Columbus, Ohio, said they will support allowing unionized state employees to collectively bargain for their wages, a reversal of a bill provision that had drawn thousands of protesters to the Statehouse.

The potential olive branch of negotiated wages comes in a bill that still would not allow unions to bargain for benefits, sick time, vacation or other conditions, Republican Senate President Tom Niehaus said. And the bill would permit no strikes for any public employee from the local level to the state, he said; such limitations exist in more than 30 states.

Meanwhile, the Indiana attorney general's office said a deputy attorney general "is no longer employed" by the state after Mother Jones magazine reported he tweeted that police should to use live ammunition against Wisconsin labor protesters, Wednesday.

The magazine reported Wednesday that Jeffrey Cox responded "Use live ammunition" to a Saturday night posting on its Twitter account that said riot police could sweep protesters out of the Wisconsin capitol, where thousands have been protesting a bill that would strip public employees of collective bargaining rights. He later told an Indianapolis television station the comments were intended to be satirical.